29+ Life-Giving Bible Verses for Married Couples

Contributing Writer

Updated February 17, 2025

Just as God is the author of life, He is also the designer of marriage. We are blessed that there are many Bible verses regarding marriage, and how to live a married life that is pleasing to God and one another. God is so invested in healthy marriages because they serve as a reflection of His love. The spiritual union they are meant to be is a foreshadowing of what God has planned for Jesus and His bride (the Church) at the end of time.

We get our first glimpse of how God feels about male and female relationships in some of the earliest verses in the Bible–when He created Adam to live in the Garden of Eden. He saw that “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). God could have created Eve out of the ground as He did with Adam, but He chose to create her from a part of Adam so that she would be “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone” (Genesis 2:23). They would be more than partners, they would be bonded to each other.

If we were to think of the first theme we associate with marriage, likely we would consider love. But there is so much more to marriage that we can mine from Scripture. There is loyalty, respect, and spiritual union/growth. Below you will find more than 29 verses that you can study with your fiance or spouse to strengthen your relationship with God and one another.

Marriage Bible Verses about Love

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has “born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).
“ And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:14).
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
(and speaking of the greatest gift of love…) “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Marriage Bible Verses about Respect

“However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:33).
“An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones” (Proverbs 12:4)
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:9).
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,” (Philippians 2:3).
“Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17).
“Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value” (Proverbs 31:11).

Marriage Bible Verses about Loyalty

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4).
“He answered", “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:18-19).
“But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:2-4).
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity” (Proverbs 17:17).
“But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17–even this bond between a mother and daughter-in-law can teach us much about loyalty).

Marriage Bible Verses about Spiritual Growth/Union

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14).
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:1-3).
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:22-33).

Prayer for Those Who Are Engaged or Married

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you created us to love one another as You love us. You know that we can truly only love if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and understand what true love is–laying down our lives for another. Lord I pray for our relationship and pray that You will fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in you, that our lives would overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. We give you thanks for helping us to grow in faith in You, as we grow in love, respect, loyalty and spiritual union with one another.

Mary Oelerich-Meyer is a Chicago-area freelance writer and copy editor who prayed for years for a way to write about and for the Lord. She spent 20 years writing for area healthcare organizations, interviewing doctors and clinical professionals and writing more than 1,500 articles in addition to marketing collateral materials. Important work, but not what she felt called to do. She is grateful for any opportunity to share the Lord in her writing and editing, believing that life is too short to write about anything else. Previously she served as Marketing Communications Director for a large healthcare system. She holds a B.A. in International Business and Marketing from Cornell College (the original Cornell!) When not researching or writing, she loves to spend time with her writer daughter, granddaughter, rescue doggie and husband (not always in that order).